Talk about a movable feast! 3,000 people all in white descend on NYC's Lincoln Center for secret flash-mob dinner

On Monday night in Manhattan, the answer was 3,000 people - all dressed in white, descending on the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The venue was a surprise until just before the flash-mob feast started at 7pm. Registered guests got emails telling them where to go.

They brought chairs, tables, food and drink, plus candles and snow white balloons sailing high above the main plaza at sunset. Row after white row filled the space around a high-shooting fountain - free of charge, with legal permits.

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Secret dinner party: An estimated 3,000 people all dressed in white attend a flash mob feast on Monday, Aug. 20, 2012 at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York

Matthew Karl Gale wore a sailor hat as he sat at a small white-covered table he bought on Craigslist.

‘I looked for "small white folding table,"' the 33-year-old eye wear designer from Brooklyn said with a grin.

His tattooed dinner partner, biotech industry employee Cassandra McCall, also 33, came all the way from San Francisco to join the revelry, explaining, ‘I love the group dynamic of all these people together, in white - it's enchanting.’

Gale said he enjoyed ‘the difficulty of getting everything together - the food, the table - and bringing it here on the subway.’

Grand setting: Last August, a pop-up dinner was held in the plaza outside the Freedom Tower in Downtown Manhattan

Preparations: Guests setting up their tables at the 2011 Diner en Blanc in New York City

Their table was filled with cheese, a couscous dish, prosciutto, grapes and more - eaten with real home cutlery and linen napkins that came from their wicker basket. There were white roses for the table.

And then, Gale added, ‘you have this unique, quirky experience, and it's over.’

Pop-up picnics will also be staged in Philadelphia on Thursday, Chicago on Friday, and next week in Vancouver, Singapore and Brisbane, Australia, followed by about a dozen other cities months from now.

Rob Robinson and Gai Spann, both 43,
brought their own strobe light, plus some pearls and diamonds that
represent his college fraternity and her sorority.

‘We're
both into food and wine, and dressing up,’ said Spann, who owns a
travel agency and wore a lacy white head ornament. He runs his own
e-commerce company.

White splendor: The annual Diner en Blanc was held at Place des Vosges in Paris this June

Next year, they plan to fly to Paris, where Diner en Blanc - French for dinner in white - was started in 1988 by a group of friends and is repeated each year, drawing at times crowds of more than 10,000 hungry guests.

The volunteer event grew by word of mouth and social media to dozens of cities worldwide in countries like Australia, Canada, Mexico, Italy and even Rawanda

This year was the second New York repast; the first was held last August on a plaza near the World Trade Center.